


Leapt Through Time: Decision

by Alyas_Alias



Series: Ukitake Juushiro x Onmitsukido!Reader [8]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, Reader-Insert, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23943655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyas_Alias/pseuds/Alyas_Alias
Summary: SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 605!!‘Leapt Through Time’ was originally an installment in this series that I decided to re-work into something better. The premise is that early on in [Name]’s career she was sent into the Dangai to study it. They suspected that the Dangai was a passage through time as well as between worlds, but they didn’t understand it when they sent her in. [Name] was thrown out into a world many centuries ahead of when she started. Through witnessing a few key canon moments, [Name] realizes her feelings for Ukitake Juushiro.This installment doesn’t cover when [Name] first enters the Dangai, but I feel like it is still a beginning of some sort. After all, action usually begins with a decision, right?
Relationships: Ukitake Juushiro/Reader
Series: Ukitake Juushiro x Onmitsukido!Reader [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1360726
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Leapt Through Time: Decision

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! Long time, no BLEACH! (jkjk...anyone get the reference?) Anyway...
> 
> It’s a strange concept and I’m probably going to make a few people mad with my interpretation/use of alternate timelines and stuff, but I’ll try to explain. While [Name] was in the Dangai and thrown through time, two possibilities for timelines/futures were born. There’s the one where [Name] exits the Dangai when she is supposed to and gets to live her life together with Juushiro (with knowledge of the other timeline/moments in the future)—the timeline that most of the installments are written in. Then there’s another possibility, [Name] doesn’t get to go ‘home’ or live her life. Canon plays out with [Name] lost in time and space and presumed dead. The way I see it, they’re separate, but interconnected. There’s only one [Name] so the future(s) that [Name] arrives in through journeying through the Dangai are all futures where she never made it back from her mission. Life went on without her. The only way she can potentially change the future or experience a future where she is legitimately in it is if she exits at the point she entered the Dangai and lives out life. It’ll likely change the course of events ‘cuz she then exists and lives through it…but major events like the Arrancar War, Aizen Sousuke’s betrayal, or the Quincy thing or whatever probably will still happen…just with her present and potentially actively trying to change things. 
> 
> What you need to know:  
> -SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 605. The first part of this snippet is my re-written/re-imagined version of the events depicted at the start of Chapter 605—Shunsui and Juushiro’s conversation. Honestly, re-reading this chapter brought tears to my eyes and you will see why in my re-write of the canon events.  
> -If you follow this series at all, please note that only some of the events depicted in “Old Threads” and “Petty Jealousy” have occurred. ‘Leapt Through Time’ deals with a pivotal point where alternate timelines are born—one where [Name] comes out of the Dangai and gets to live out a life with Juushiro (which includes most of the other installments), and another where she never returned from the Dangai mission (basically, canon events). So ‘Leapt Through Time’ officially makes this series an AU.

“Hup! Whoa! Hup!” A floral pink _kimono_ is an odd sight as it flutters and sways a path through a broken world.

The figure beneath the _kimono_ is not the elegant, slender, noble woman one would expect; but a broad-shouldered, kind-faced man. He is not the original owner of the _kimono_ , although she was very dear to him. He goes by many names and titles, the second son of the Kyouraku Clan, the spare heir, the Slackard, Kyouraku Shunsui, Captain Drunkard, the former Captain of Squad Eight, Captain Womanizer, Captain Hair(y), the current Captain of Squad One and the Head of the _Gotei_ (he’s still getting used to this one). Regardless of what he goes by now, it doesn’t change the fact that he is currently hopping and skipping through mounds of debris.

“Oh my~,” Shunsui drawls. “Everything’s been destroyed. Well,” He pauses in his travels across the rubble. “These structures belong to them now, right? If we drive them out, will the _Seireitei_ return?” He turns, slowly. “If it does come back, will it be like it used to be or will everything still be broken?” The playful timbre in his voice gradually faded as he spoke and it’s all but gone now. “I hope it’ll be like it used to be, wouldn’t you agree?”

A man with white hair stands before Shunsui on higher terrain. They are friends—best friends. The rubble seems to have fallen around the area he is in, as though the entire area was under a protective force when everything crumbled. It’s possible the area Juushiro stands in didn’t have any structures to topple before all of the chaos started, but the aura around Juushiro leads Shunsui to believe it’s the former. Something protected Juushiro, and the area he occupied was holy ground—untouched by the chaos and destruction that reigned down.

“I don’t know. If they’re broken, we’ll fix them.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

Their exchange betrays their personalities. Even as the Head if the _Gotei_ , Shunsui is an easy-going kind of person. He’s not comfortable with responsibility and he’d prefer the status quo and the slow life to a day’s hard work. If everything came back as it was and only the Quincy-structures were broken he’d be a happy camper. This space mirrored _Seireitei_ in every way up until now and he’d rather think of the two as separate dimensions that do not have an effect on one another. He’s a bit of an optimist, always hoping that the best outcome will come about, even if things look like that will no longer be a possibility. He’s great at ignoring harsh truths and realities until he has no choice but to deal with them.

Juushiro is different—always has been. He’s a down-to-earth sort of guy, always willing to put in a day’s hard work and more…if his body would allow him. What Shunsui would rather leave to a figurative ‘tomorrow’, Juushiro would figure out where to slot in a priority list. He’s also an optimist, but in a different way than Juushiro. Shunsui would balk at having to rebuild _Seireitei_ from the ground up, but if Juushiro had his way he would be beside his friend, nudging him with an extra shovel as he tries to get Shunsui to envision a _Seireitei_ that’s better than the one that crumbled.

“You allowed the infiltration into the Soul King’s Palace.” It’s not an accusation, merely an observation.

“Ah, so you knew about that.” Shunsui smiles behind his straw hat, pulled low to hide his face.

“The _kamikake_ was in anticipation of that.”

Once again, their exchange betrays more than just their words. Anyone else would tear Shunsui a new one if he admitted to allowing the enemy to reach the Soul King. The Soul King is the lynchpin of existence as we know it. Without the King, all realms would fall into chaos. Before the Soul King there was naught but chaos—souls heaped on top of souls, human, Hollow, Quincy, and _konpaku_ all going at each other with reckless abandon. It wasn’t a good world for anyone involved.

Juushiro isn’t accusing Shunsui. He knew what Shunsui would do, probably even before he did it. It’s not just because they are friends. Juushiro is a realist; he’s not the type to ignore reality until it can’t be ignored. He saw the situation and realized that they were fast-approaching the infiltration of the palace. He saw the worst-case scenario and he acted assuming that’s what would happen. Always prepared, always there to pick people up and calm them down. Juushiro is nothing if not dependable.

Maybe it’s because he has had a piece of the Soul King dwelling within him for centuries, maybe that influenced the kind of man he became. Juushiro is very much like the Soul King. In a crisis, he is the one that remains calm. He is the clearer head that prevails. Even in battle he refuses to give-in to rage. The closest he came to rage was when the life of his subordinate was being thrown around like some inanimate object by the whims of higher authorities without reason. He was angry, but he still had a clear head on his shoulders and began to prepare for the most-likely scenario to come. The bureaucratic system had failed his subordinate so Juushiro was done playing by the rules. He had a clear goal: to save the life of his subordinate—and everything he did was for that goal.

Shunsui hides his face behind his hat as he ascends to the same area as Juushiro. He can’t bear to look at his friend, not when they both know that this will be the last time. They both know what the _kamikake_ means. They both know what it means if Shunsui’s gamble doesn’t pay off. There are no higher stakes than the Soul King. They’re both risking everything they have. Juushiro is betting his entire existence on the outcome and Shunsui is betting the fate of all existence including Hueco Mundo and the World of the Living. They’re not betting chips that Shunsui would normally feel comfortable holding on to, but they were forced onto him. They’re heavy and he doesn’t like that sort of responsibility put on his shoulders…but there is nobody else.

‘You’re a liar’, he wants to say to Juushiro. Juushiro said “we”, including himself in the idea of rebuilding _Seireitei_. He lied. He knows that he will not be there. Shunsui will have to carry his own shovel. He bites his tongue. If this really is going to be the last time he gets to see his dear friend, then he wants to ignore the harsh reality a little longer. It’s not like Juushiro to lie and ignore reality with him, but it’s a comfort to both of them. He finally got Juushiro to be a bit of a dreamer and he likes to think that it’s Juushiro’s influence that got him to bet on the worst-case scenario and let Yhwach get to the Soul King. It’s Juushiro’s influence that he is now on his way to where he is, to do another unthinkable thing because it is necessary. If it were up to him, if he didn’t have such a great friend by his side for all of these centuries, he would be dozing on a rooftop somewhere, waiting for the end to come.

“It seems the _kamikake_ was a success.” Shunsui spies the large shadow his friend’s frail figure casts. “It looks like you can push yourself a little now.”

“Please don’t speak like a doctor,” Juushiro offers a sheepish smile. “Do I have to hear that sort of talk even if I look like I can push myself a little now?” He chides with a slight upturn of his lips. It’s shaky and it barely reaches his eyes—like his smile is being crushed by the weight of the harsh reality of their situation. Juushiro is a dead-man-walking and he has been since the _kamikake_ …nay…potentially even since he first met Mimihagi—it all came down to this.

Shunsui forces a smile behind his hat as well as he passes his friend. He still can’t bring himself to meet Juushiro’s eyes knowing what they both know.

“Well, take care of yourself. I’ll see you later.” Lies. He’s become a liar too, it seems.

“Sure,” It would have been an automatic response if it weren’t for the slight crack in Juushiro’s voice as he utters the affirmation. He wasn’t made for ignoring harsh realities. He knows it’s a lie. He knows they’re pretending. He knows that behind the hat his friend’s eyes are swimming with tears. “Wait! Where are you going?” Ah, it seems he was able to pull the wool over Juushiro’s eyes at least once, at the end. Juushiro has always been able to predict what he’s been thinking…until now, it seems.

“Oh? Just to Central 46.” If anyone else knew what he were up to, they wouldn’t stop at just tearing him a new one. He’s glad it’s Juushiro he encountered on the way and not someone else. He would cease to exist, unable to even become the _reishi_ that makes up Soul Society if it were anyone else that saw him on his way to petition for the release of Aizen Souske.

Unbidden, the image of a young girl wearing the Shin’o school uniform flashes in his mind. An image of her and Juushiro walking alongside him, laughing at something one of them said. Another of the same girl with concern and determination on her face as she carefully feeds a bed-ridden Juushiro some broth, homework strewn across the _tatami_ around them. She’s been missing for centuries, but his memories of her are as clear as day. Shunsui can’t help but wonder what she would do now. If she had lived through everything with them and been betrayed by Aizen Sousuke with them, would she have stopped him now? Would she have stopped Juushiro from performing _kamikake_? He knows that the two of them are bound by their ties to Mimihagi. He knows that she is one of the very few people privy to Juushiro’s secret. He is grateful to Mimihagi for making him well enough to become a Captain of the _Gotei_ , but if word got around that the literal Right Arm of the Soul King were walking around then Juushiro’s life and Mimihagi’s existence would probably be forfeit. Shunsui can’t help but think of her now at the end of all things.

Juushiro never gave up on her. She disappeared and due to the nature of her true profession the family was never informed. There was no card with condolences or visit from the Head of the _Onmitsukido._ Juushiro himself knew nothing until recently. For the rest of the family, [Name] just never came home one day. It was sad, but they had nobody to ask about her whereabouts. They didn’t know which Squad she was a part of and Juushiro had to pretend that he knew no more than his family did. He told them that it was possible that she was sent on a long-term mission somewhere or was out of contact for some other reason. He told them tales of recon squads that went dark for a while before resurfacing—explaining how they had to cut communications or risk jeopardizing the mission or something else. When you get really into a mission or caught in the thick of things, reporting your status back to your superiors is not really high on your list of priorities, and it could be a long time before you’re sure it’s safe enough to send someone to report. It’s also quite possible that a lone individual sent to inform the higher ups gets lost along the way. Some Hollow are cunning creatures and they will wait until one is separated from the group to pick them off. Other messengers get lost somewhere in the Dangai and are never heard from again. These are all things Shunsui suspected had happened to their friend, at least until he found out her real profession. He didn’t get concrete evidence of what happened to her until after he became the Captain-Commander of the _Gotei_.

It was his duty to go through all of the files pertaining to the _Gotei,_ especially the top-secret ones. He had no idea what to expect or that there would be so much that Genryusai was privy to. He half expected to find a doomsday countdown or something somewhere and be told that it was his duty to watch the clock and ensure people do not panic. Nanao ~~did all of the work~~ helped him, and she organized everything in a way that would make sense to her and her Captain. After months of painstaking organization, she came to him with a couple of sheets of paper bound together. It had been mistakenly filed, dated centuries ago, and she was asking what he wished to do with it—standard procedure being that it should have been incinerated with the other files from that time. Shunsui didn’t know what had compelled him to have a look at the papers, but he’s been immensely grateful he did.

It was [Name]’s _onmitsu_ file. It detailed all of the missions she had been on and her performance in all of them. From those sheets of paper, he learned what had happened to his friend and it broke his heart. ‘Mission-failure: MIA’ were the last words written on her file. Her last mission had been to go into the Dangai long before they understood much about it. Shunsui was crestfallen at the revelation, but also angry. His dear friend had been used as a Guinea pig to satisfy someone else’s curiosity. On top of all that, her file had been shoved aside, left to collect dust and was even lost in the wrong place. It was worse than her being forgotten—she was used and written off without anyone bothering to look for her or inform her family. Shunsui took the file and the information to Juushiro. The Ukitake clan and a right to know what happened to their ward and Juushiro was the Head of the clan at that point. Even if he wasn’t, Shunsui still would have gone to Juushiro first. He wasn’t surprised that his friend knew of [Name]’s true profession. Despite it all, Juushiro didn’t give up hope. He said he knew something must have happened to her for all of those centuries, but he refused to give up on her. She wasn’t dead, just missing…even if she was missing for more than three centuries. Shunsui left it up to Juushiro whether or not to tell the rest of his family about their beloved ward and pseudo-sister.

He doesn’t know if Juushiro ever told them. Is it going to be a secret Juushiro takes to his grave? Shunsui is the only other person who knows—and maybe Soi-Fon if the _Onmitsukido_ keep records. He knows that the family mourns for [Name] and eagerly waits for her return. He’s been present for their little ritual. Every year on the date [Name] came to live with them they leave something in ‘ _onee-san’s’_ room. Sen learned how to make _daifuku,_ [Name]’s favorite snack. Hina left drawings or some new thing she attempted to sew. They talk to [Name] too, in a way that Shunsui thinks is much too reminiscent of talking to someone’s grave. He’s overheard Juushiro doing the same when he thinks nobody is listening. Shunsui has no doubt that his friend has fallen for a girl who is no longer here. Juushiro has always been the resident heartthrob—since their academy days and even now. Re-prints of his photos for some Women’s Association event are still being sold at high prices. Juushiro could have his pick of the women that pine for him, but he always ends up back at [Name]’s door. When this is all over, Shunsui will have quite the story to report to her room this year, alongside Sen chattering about her husband and Eiji’s enthusiastic recount of some new move he’s figured out playing soccer.

Juushiro walks through the rubble. Occasionally, he’ll spy a familiar-looking piece of debris and wonder about which building it came from. Like Shunsui, he winds up thinking in a circle wondering if the building is from the _Seireitei_ or from the Quincy-reflection of the _Seireitei_. Neither? Both? Should he be projecting his memories of the buildings onto them if it’s the Quincy-reflection?

Despite the chaos going on all around, Juushiro tries to take as much of the scenic route as he can. It’s more than likely that this will be the last time he gets to walk around anywhere. The shadow of Mimihagi trails after him, proving that he is much more than what he appears. Despite the deity within him, he can’t help but feel very alone. _Kamikake_ has not been entirely completed. When it is, Juushiro will cease to exist. No more consciousness, no more awareness of himself as separate from Mimihagi.

“Juu- _chan!”_

He’s not quite sure if it’s the exclamation or the feeling of a weight ploughing into his back that breaks him out of his reverie. Slender arms wrap around his chest and pull him tight against a slim figure much shorter than he is. Juushiro stands, frozen, as his mind processes the nickname he hasn’t heard in centuries. He brings a hand up to touch one of the ones clutching at his _shihakusho_ , disbelief clear on his features.

“[N-Name]? Is it…really you?”

He feels a nod against his back along with the tell-tale warm wetness of tears. He closes his eyes and clutches at one of her hands, basking in the moment. [Name] appears to feel the same.

“You came back. I always knew you would.”

He strokes the back of one of her hands as he speaks, trying to quell her sadness. Her hand is much smaller than he remembers it being, though now is not the time to worry about that. He’s been longing to see her for centuries and now that she is finally here, he wants to embrace the moment—even if one like it won’t come again. He has longed for this moment for over three centuries.

Their knowledge of the Dangai has grown significantly since the day [Name] was sent into it. After Shunsui uncovered [Name]’s forgotten file, he also gave Juushiro access to any and all data on the Dangai that he got his hands on. From there, Juushiro had access to centuries worth of data gathered on the Dangai, from what was done with exiles to likely possibilities of what happens when the Kotetsu chases one out of the tunnels stretching through time and space.

In these last few years, Juushiro finally gained some sense of closure. He stubbornly held onto the belief that [Name] had been thrown through time and wound up elsewhere in both physical location and time. He couldn’t do much if she wound up in the past, but Juushiro opted to believe in the other possibility. He decided to believe that [Name] got thrown into the future. With that belief in mind, Juushiro decided that as long as Ugendo stood, [Name] would have a place in it—no matter what time period it was. The rest of the family was not permitted details, but they saw how much it meant to Juushiro that [Name]’s room be maintained and left as it was. Even after decades had gone by, none of them could bring themselves to have the conversation with Juushiro either; to their family, [Name] wasn’t dead, she was just on an extended mission and couldn’t come home for a long time. Juushiro was never known to be selfish so the family sort of decided that if ignoring the likely possibility of [Name]’s death was what he needed, they would gladly pretend for him. Then again, there wasn’t very much pretending going on in that house—nobody wanted to believe that [Name]—their family member in all but blood—was truly gone.

[Name]’s grip on his _shihakusho_ tightens. Her hold on him rivals even that of Mimihagi, whom he is in the process of consecrating himself to. A million possibilities and questions flash through Juushiro’s mind. There are so many things he wants to ask her—many more that he wants to tell her.

“I knew…know…? Every damned time…every time it was always the same. He told me what—what happened. I didn’t…Even so, didn’t want…I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to see _this_.” Her voice is off—sobbing causing it to fluctuate and not sound properly.

Juushiro pats at the back of her hand, once again trying to calm her. Right now, he wants more than anything to be able to turn around and hold his beloved…friend…and commit her face to memory. His palm brushes over a device on her wrist and the sight of it combines with her words to answer most of Juushiro’s questions.

If the wrist-watch-like device on [Name]’s wrist is what he thinks it is, then [Name] hasn’t been thrown through the Dangai just once. He feels like kicking himself when he sees the device.

A few months ago, Shihouin Yoruichi visited him. She, Urahara Kisuke, and Tsukabishi Tessai are still considered exiles from Soul Society; but since aiding in taking Aizen Sousuke into custody their labels have begun to wear off just a little. Yoruichi always had her ways of coming and going into the Soul Society, but she has been able to do so more openly ever since the Arrancar-war. He and Yoruichi have always been on good terms. He knew her predecessor(s) and he liked to keep in touch with the head of the _Onmitsukido_ for [Name]’s sake even after she disappeared. On a recent visit, she mentioned a device Kisuke was testing on a volunteer to further unravel the mysteries of travelling through the Dangai. Juushiro should have read the meaning behind her words—an _onmitsu_ doesn’t divulge information needlessly or simply to make conversation. He should have put it together that she was giving him a hint that his dear friend was still around. He can only blame the fact that he was too afraid of disappointment. Yoruichi tried to give him hope and he refused to be baited.

After they discovered that it was a passage through time as well as between worlds, Central 46 decided that using it for the former could be cataclysmic. There’s a slim chance of anyone surviving being thrown out of time to begin with, but the idea of someone being thrown into the past or into the future and mucking things up sounded really bad. Apparently, it was rarer to be thrown into a past before one entered the Dangai, but it was a possibility that could potentially alter the present and future, so it was forbidden. Of course, forbid something and people will attempt to do it anyway, so only the researchers and the Captain-Commander of the _Gotei_ were told the truth and they were put under a strong _kido_ that prevented them from divulging the information. Of course, over the years as research into the Dangai progressed, some things became common knowledge. Shunsui managed to outwit the Central 46. He and Nanao rooted through all of the old files and in the end it was Nanao that handed Juushiro a stack of dusty old files that seemingly had no common thread.

Juushiro was confused, at first. What Shunsui had brought him appeared to be some official records along with some scrappy excerpts from journals and diary entries of various people spanning centuries. Each excerpt mentioned (sometimes vaguely) gaining intel from an _onmitsu_ or meeting a girl they had never seen before. There was also a very blurry image of an unknown figure slipping into Kurotsuchi’s lab from the last few years. There was that as well as [Name]’s _onmitsu_ file. Juushiro thought the other stuff was simply to hide the fact that Shunsui had given him a classified file that should have been incinerated centuries ago. Juushiro knows now that the blurry figure was [Name] but he couldn’t connect the dots back then. He thought Shunsui had just brought him the files pertaining to time-travel to give him more concrete hope for what he already convinced himself had happened to [Name].

[Name] wasn’t just thrown through the Dangai once. She met up with Kisuke at some point and acquired the device that allowed her more control over her leaps through time and space, or so it appears. Juushiro decides he doesn’t need specifics even if he wishes they could stop time and he could listen to [Name]’s tales in detail. There’s no time. Not anymore.

_Wait—_

“[Name]…you just said you knew?” He feels a nod at his back as she clings even tighter to him. “I won’t ask what that means, but can I take that to mean that you arrived in a future beyond this one and that you are able to go back further?” Another nod.

Finally, Juushiro gives in to his urge to have his dear friend in his arms. Using strength granted by the _kamikake_ he twists in her hold until he is free. It isn’t long before they are in contact again as he wraps his arms around her small shoulders. She has always been slightly smaller than him—notably in the shoulders—but right now he has to stoop to embrace her. She hasn’t aged a day since she went into the Dangai, memories of graduation still fresh in her mind. It’s been centuries for him, but it may have only been a few hours for her…then again, if she has been skipping through time the way she has then it’s possible that her own experience of time has been tampered with. Hours or centuries don’t really matter, not when the tears streaming down her cheeks reflect centuries of anguish.

He has grown taller and broader as well as put on a bit more muscle over the years than he had back in her time. His features are sharper, his brow more defined than it was in his youth. His hair is much longer too. His clothes envelop him, but he fills them much better than he would have over three centuries ago. [Name] is clothed in a loose, form-fitting jumpsuit-style _onmitsu_ garb—the kind worn by _onmitsu_ cadets when they are training. Even without the loose fabric adding to his size, he still feels like he’s drowning her as he clutches her close to him.

“Go home, [Name]. No matter where or when, as long as Ugendo stands you will have a place in it.”

“But you—you’re—”

“I know, [Name].” He looks down, tilting her gaze to meet his with a gentle hold on her chin. “Go home so we can do all of this properly.” His pointer finger ghosts over her lips as he holds off on what he wants to do. She has been away all this time and he decided a long time ago that his feelings are his problem and his alo—

[Name] closes the distance between their faces, pressing her lips against his with a desperate intensity driving her. Juushiro doesn’t have the heart to pull away (not that he wants to). She presses against him even as he can feel her lungs spasming for air with the hand on her back. He’s painfully aware of how agonizing it is to not be able to breathe and it’s that thought that gets him to tear himself away even though it breaks his heart.

“I-I never…I never gave you my…I didn’t get to w-write…” [Name] claws at the folds of her garment and Juushiro spies a folded sheet of paper tucked against her chest. He stops her with a hand on her wrist.

“I know. Now is not the time for that, darling.”

“But there’s—there’s nothing a-after—” He crosses her lips with a finger, staring into her eyes as though to enthrall her.

“I know, sweetheart. That’s why you need to go back home. Ideally, you’d get back to the point you entered the Dangai and forget about all…this. What I’m doing here is for the sake of existence itself. All of the worlds hinge on the Soul King.” He doesn’t want to have to spell it out to her, to make it sound like a mission. He has hope that if she can get back to the point where she first entered the Dangai she’ll make it back home to her own time and that they’ll be blessed with four centuries together before they reach this point in time.

“But why does it have to be yo—”

“Ever since the day I learned of what Mimihagi had done for me I looked into the myths and legends surrounding the deity. It was originally a part of the Soul King. Sweetheart—if not me then who else? This is what I’ve always wanted—I wanted a healthy body to give it all for the good of Soul Society. Today my life will be given not just for the Soul Society, but for all worlds—”

“Dumb hero—”

“I’m not doing it for them. I figured out my reasons for sacrificing my life to ensure all the worlds continue to exist a long time ago,” Juushiro’s eyes soften as he stares into hers. “I’m not doing this to be a hero or for some inferiority complex or compensation due to my illness. I’m ensuring the existence of the worlds so that my beloved may continue to exist within them. I’m doing this so that everyone back at home, from Eiji to Hatori, may live and be happy.”

“How can we be happy if you’re not there?”

Juushiro offers her a sad smile, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, stuck there by the tears dampening her features.

“You’ll have to try.”

Juushiro closes his eyes, burning the feeling of having her in his arms into his mind. This is a memory he wants to hold onto forever. He’s decided that this is what he wants to remember when he completes _kamikake_ and ceases to exist. He wants to remember what she felt like in his arms and imagine four centuries of hugs and kisses with her. When he tears himself away from [Name] he feels like he is coming away much lighter, like he left something with her. Finally, after all these years he understands what his late lieutenant swore by. Because [Name] was here, he was able to leave his heart behind. It will live on with her and it’s his duty to ensure that she will live on and take his heart into the future—hopefully a better future than the one they are currently in.

[Name] watches as a dark shape shoots up and into the Heavens like some twisted version of a tree. She knows what it means. She heard various accounts of this event in her travels and they all said the same thing—that a dark shape sprouted from Juushiro’s orifices and rose to take the place of the Soul King. Still, hearing about it and witnessing it all play out are two very different things—especially because she knows what it means when the dark entity is pulled up, ripped from the person it had taken root in for centuries. As the last traces of Mimihagi disappear into the Heavens somewhere, absorbed by Yhwach if she believes the accounts, [Name] knows that it is finished. Her beloved is no more.

She didn’t mean to travel to this moment—not intentionally, at least.

When she first exited the Dangai, she wound up in a world approximately ten years after this moment. She soon found herself at Juushiro’s grave and encountered Shunsui there. With his help, she met Urahara Kisuke and agreed to become his test-subject in traveling the Dangai—for the sake of going home. She was told to hang around for a while until Kisuke found/completed his invention. While wandering the world many centuries into the future, [Name] tried to glean as much information as she could about Juushiro’s final moments. She needed to know exactly what happened to Juushiro and Mimihagi. Interpretations weren’t good enough. She needed accurate, specific details of what happened and how it happened. “A black tree grew out of Juushiro and was ripped from it’s roots and he collapsed—dead!” wasn’t a good enough descriptor for her purposes. That was how it appeared to the onlooker that told her, but [Name] needed to be sure that the ‘tree’ was Mimihagi emerging from Juushiro and not some tendril of Yhwach coming down from the Soul Palace to fetch souls. She had heard from others that Yhwach did something similar to all of the Quincy left after the infiltration of the palace. Something came down and zapped them and they ceased to exist—having been absorbed by ‘His Majesty’.

[Name] wound up here on a whim. After hearing as many recounts of what happened as she could handle, [Name] entered the Dangai. Kisuke’s device was complete. He told her to use it to go back to her own time and not test how durable it was or how many leaps through time it could handle. She meant to go back home to her own time, but her mind was on the moment she had heard recounted countless times. Before she knew it, she had fallen out of the Dangai and into a world of debris. Before she could wander, [Name] heard voices and hid behind some rubble. She had only meant to watch, nothing more. She saw Shunsui shed a few tears as he passed his best friend. She saw Juushiro calmly walk through the debris and decided to follow him. Shunsui’s tears unsettled her, but it wasn’t until she saw Juushiro’s shadow that [Name] knew exactly what point in time she had arrived in. From that moment, all logic flew out the window and [Name] buried her face into Juushiro’s back—familiar and different from the Juushiro she was used to in her time.

She knows what she has to do now. Sending Juushiro a silent apology in her heart, [Name] sets out to look for Urahara Kisuke. When he gave her the device, he let slip that he had been looking into time-travel and the mysteries of the Dangai for a very long time. She hopes that ‘a long time’ means ten years or more because she’s going to need him to understand the device if she wants to eventually make it home.

[Name] wants to understand how everything went so wrong. She wants to understand how things got so bad that Juushiro consecrated all of himself to Mimihagi for naught. She wants to know so that she can prevent it from happening. Juushiro was hopeful that she could return to the moment she first entered the Dangai. [Name] doesn’t know if it’s possible to go back over four centuries, but she hopes she’ll at least be able to go back far enough to prevent Juushiro from making his sacrifice…or stop it from being for naught if all else fails.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> For people returning to this series, I’m very sorry for the long wait. I know it’s been 5 or 6 months—basically half a year since ‘Petty Jealousy’. This lull wasn’t due to a lack of ideas, but the opposite. I have dozens of installments in the works…but they’re all stuck in development hell ‘cuz I can’t write as fast as my brain wants to spawn ideas.
> 
> On top of new installments, the discrepancies in the original ‘Leapt Through Time’ kept on bothering me, so I made a big decision and deleted the old ‘Leapt Through Time’. I did it to light a fire under my butt to fix it and post. While trying to re-write ‘Leapt Through Time’ for the umpteenth time I realized that constantly trying to write and start from the point where [Name] first entered the Dangai was trapping me in the same loop of plot. In order to break myself out of that rut I decided to break ‘Leapt Through Time’ into fragments and just write whichever fragment I was inspired to. This whole series isn’t written or published in chronological order anyway, and ‘Leapt Through Time’ has a bunch of different facets that could turn it all into its own series…so why should ‘Leapt Through Time’ be written chronologically? Anyway, I hope you enjoy and don’t get too confused by my decision to write this way.
> 
> If anyone is curious, my work is deemed an essential service so I’m still working amidst the health crisis. Scheduling is random and changes every night so ‘consistency’ isn’t really a part of my life at the moment…which means even less opportunities to write stuff. Aside from the lack of consistency there isn’t really much else I can complain about right now and I know there are a lot of people out there in worse situations than me. I hope that if you’re reading this that you and the people you care about are okay and that this installment was able to alleviate some boredom for you and give you stuff to do. I welcome kudos, comments, whatever if you wanna talk (even if I might not have much time for it). I am working on other installments but I won’t promise if/when I’ll post them—but I haven’t abandoned this series. I swear, every time I turn on my computer 2 or 3 installments are open and in the works. 
> 
> Stay healthy, stay safe, and try to pick one hobby/project to focus your attention on to complete something and feel good about yourself. Feel free to share with me what those hobbies/projects are. One of mine is clearly writing, as you can see by this installment…but I’ve also been doing a lot of sewing. Some of it was for necessity because myself and some of my friends work in essential services and needed non-surgical/medical masks to show up to work with…as well as the fact that I’ve been trying to sew myself a Vampire Knight-style box-pleat skirt ‘cuz I’ve been in love with that skirt since Volume 1 came out in English.


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